


what have i become, my sweetest friend

by virtuosity



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: (sort of), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Post-TTYCT, Pre-2019, Small reference to self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-28 05:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18749620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virtuosity/pseuds/virtuosity
Summary: He finds her in his bed when he gets home from Florida.





	what have i become, my sweetest friend

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so here are some WARNINGS for this:
> 
> \- This has references to Scott going to Florida.
> 
> \- This references several rumored relationships that Tessa has had over the years.
> 
> \- There is an implied reference to cheating, but never in detail or with who.
> 
> \- There is a small reference to past self-harm. 
> 
> This fic started as me processing the meltdown of the fandom at the end of November. Nobody knew (or still knows) what really happened and what didn't and honestly we shouldn't because it's not our business but hell I wrote this anyway. I wanted to write something about both of them carrying blame and hurting each other in different ways. I just really wanted to explore their dynamic at the end of last year, with all of the history that only 21 years of support and communication and knowledge can bring. 
> 
> I hope you all like it (or at the very least don't hate it), let me know.

He finds her in his bed when he gets home from Florida.

He wants to be angry - he _is_ angry, but he also feels like he can breathe for the first time in far too long. Kicking off his shoes, he crosses his arms and looks at her, just looks at her, cataloguing the softness of her features, so different from the last time they spoke.

With a flutter, her eyes open and all he can see is green. For a moment they stare at each other, and then he breathes, “What the fuck, Tessa?” She looks away and sits up, pulling the blanket around her more tightly. She looks so small.

“Tessa,” he says again quietly, intentionally using her full name, and watching her lift her finger to her mouth and nip at the skin around the edges of her nail. It was a nervous habit leftover from when they had moved to Canton, one that had been quashed when Marina saw the small scabs around her nails and made it very clear to her that she could vent her frustrations on her body if she wanted to - but only if she did it where people couldn’t see it.

“Hi,” she says, dropping her hand to her lap.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“I didn’t know when you’d be back,” she mutters.

“So you didn’t want me to catch you here?”

She shrugs.

“You did want me to?”

She swallows hard and looks up at him, but doesn’t respond.

“Which one is it?” he presses.

“Both,” she answers softly.

He sighs and drops to the bed, his back to her. “I have no idea what to do here.”

He hears her scoff lightly. “Yeah.”

He wants to turn around and yell at her, ask her how she dares to act like she is the one who has been hurt, act like what happened didn’t happen, act like he owes her anything, but he doesn’t. Because he knows that he would be a hypocrite if he did.

They had both made mistakes. He’d finally come to terms with the role he had played in what had happened. For years, they had done this dance - love and happiness and pain and heartache and betrayal, it was somehow built into the framework of their relationship.

“What do I do, Tess?” he asks, fully aware of how broken his voice sounded.

She says nothing. He turns to look at her. “Tell me what to do.”

With a deep breath, she looks up at him, green eyes wide and shining with tears. She shakes her head slowly, and whispers, “I don’t know.”

He swallows hard against the lump rising in his throat. He wants to hug her, to tell her that it will be okay, to make it better, but the image of what had happened burns behind his eyes every time he closed them and he honestly isn’t sure it can ever be better.

“How did we end up here?”

“God, Scott, I have no idea,” she responds quietly.

“I really thought it was it this time, you know?” he says. “I thought we were done with this shit.”

She sniffles lightly. “Yeah.”

“Can you just tell me why?”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees her tense, her defenses going up.

“No,” he says, reaching out to grab her wrist. “Not - not in a - I just want to know.”

At the touch of his hand, she reacts, almost as though a breath of life rushes through her. He knows how she feels - there's something that seems to wilt within them when they go too long without contact.

“I don’t know,” she breathes out. “I wish I knew.”

“Was it what I said?”

“Yes,” she replies, simply. “And no.”

Memories of their fight rush into his mind - flashes of her face streaked with tears, eyes burning with rage and hurt, his voice rough and loud, his own pain making him lash out. The problem with loving someone so deeply for so long was that you innately knew which hits would cause the most pain.

He can’t believe that the words had come out of his mouth. They’d had some major fights in their time, but, even at their worst, he would never have thought he could say things like that to her.

_God, sometimes I feel like you had surgery just so you could hold it over me for the rest of our lives._

_You’ll never be perfect no matter how hard you try - pretty sure there are scars on your legs to prove it._

_If you want to please everyone so badly, why don’t you just get on your knees?_

The fight had come out of nowhere and he’d found himself angry at her indecision, hurt by her hesitation, and terrified of losing her. The words had scuttled out from the dark depths of his subconscious and flung themselves from his mouth before he really had a chance to think about it.

Part of him didn’t blame her for what she’d done after that. Maybe he deserved it.

“I think that this is just what I do,” she says quietly. “I’m...god, I’m fucked up, Scott.”  

“It’s not your fault - “

“It _is_ ,” she breaks in. “It _is_ my fault. I can’t keep blaming other people for my mistakes.”

“And I get that,” he responds. “But you can’t ignore the things that happened.”

“Please don’t do this,” she says.

“Do you not remember the way that piece of shit stalked around that fucking rink? He knew what he was doing, and he knew that he could get away with it. I don’t care what Meryl says about him, he -”

“He didn’t do anything that I didn’t want him to do!” she snaps. “I’ve told you this - “

“He was in your head from the time you were sixteen years old!”

“So were _you_!”

“And don’t even get me started on -”

“Do we have to do this every time? I wasn’t just some innocent child! I was nineteen years old!”

“Yeah, and he was _thirty-four_!” he breaks out.

“I’m not talking about this again,” she says fiercely. “You have to stop thinking of me as some weak, innocent little girl who was ruined by the men in her life.”

“That’s definitely not something that I think. Especially right now.”   
  
Her jaw tenses as she bites back a reply. “The thing is,” she says quietly, carefully controlling her emotions, “you do. Whether you realize it or not, you put me on this pedestal where I’m not responsible for my actions - even when I do things to _you_.”

He can’t help but give a humorless laugh at that. “Tessa, I really don’t think I have any issue blaming you for things.”

She rolls her eyes. “That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“Look at what’s happening right now,” she sighs. “I did this, and even now, when I shattered everything we spent so long building, when I hurt you like _this_ \- you are still trying to tell me that I don’t hold the blame.”

He takes in her words and thinks for a moment. “I’m not though.”

She sags back against the pillow, clearly frustrated, but he shifts to face her more directly. “No, listen. I’m fucking pissed as hell, I don’t know if I will ever be able to look at you the same way ever again,” he powers on, doing his best to ignore the way she digs her nails into her palms and quickly wipes a tear from her cheek, “but I am aware enough of the situation to know that you didn’t get to that point alone and I know _you_ well enough to know where it came from.”

“But - “

“No,” he cuts her off. “You don’t get to talk right now. You fucked up. I’m not saying that you didn’t - I will _never_ say that you didn't. You broke my fucking heart, Tessa. And do I think that regardless of what happened between us and what I said that you didn’t have to do _that_ ? Of course. But I just - god, Tess, I just _know you_. And it’s just not that simple.”

She doesn’t answer, just worries her bottom lip with her teeth.

He pushes himself further up onto the bed, leaning back against the headboard next to her.

“Shit,” he mumbles, running a hand over his face wearily.

“Yeah,” she echoes.

They sit in silence for a moment. He can feel her anticipation like an aura around her, a bubble of uncertainty and anxiety - not unlike the first time they perform something new publicly - unsure of the reaction, waiting for rejection as much as approval.

“I’m tired,” is all he can come up with.

She nods softly, avoiding his eyes. Then with a deep, steadying breath she moves to stand, but he stops her by placing a hand on her calf gently. She looks at him sharply, confusion laced with hope etched across her face.

“I don’t know the answer to any of this, Tess,” he sees her breath hitch slightly at his use of a nickname, “but I’m just really fucking tired. I just want to sleep, okay?”

She gives a small nod, hesitating.

He gives her calf a squeeze, hoping that some measure of his remorse at the words he had thrown at her will seep into her skin, and says, “And I haven’t slept well in weeks, so.”

She swallows hard. “So?”

“So stay,” he finishes quietly.

A sob catches in her throat.

“I don’t know what it means, I just -”

She nods, cutting him off as a tear makes its way down her cheek. “I know.”

After one more moment of hesitation, he reaches for her and before he can truly process it his arms are full of her and he can feel her sobbing into his neck. He tightens his hold on her, relishing the feel of her, feeling some part of himself click back into place.

He feels her sobs turn to hiccups as her breathing settles and evens out.

“Okay?”

She nods. “Okay.”

She shifts as he lies down, settling onto his side. He nudges her gently and she rolls to her side as well, letting him pull her back into his chest firmly and catching his hand in hers and entwining their fingers against her chest.

For a moment, everything else melts away. The feel of her against him, her smell surrounding him, let everything else fade to the far reaches of his mind, to be dealt with later. It didn’t matter now.

He feels himself drift, sleep taking him quickly, and knows, without a doubt, that she will follow.  


End file.
